Free The Mephistophelean House by Benjamin Carrico Page B

find a way over the fence we can make a break for the House, back to the windowless chamber.”
    I followed the hedge. There was a bosk next to the refectory. I scanned the grounds like a madman breaking in for some inane reason to very same asylum he was escaping from. White caps jutted across the gust front, squall line cleated in bands, the branch strokes of an anvil crawler pleating the vort lobe.
    The refectory door opened. Two men in white coats kicked up fields of rubicund flecks, spotting their coattails and ties.
    I dove behind the archivolt.
    The footsteps circled.
    Rain fell in sheets. I brought my hands to my face. I had to get out of the storm. Water gushed off the cooper roof of a chapel. A pipe organ played softly. Stained glass windows depicted a lonely figure assailed by beasts.
    A concussion throttled the viaduct.
    My outline was inflamed.
    I looked through the trees.
    All was still.
    Nothing stirred.
    A deluge erupted. The buildings at the end of the copse faded, rivulets forming fast flowing streams. The white coats disappeared inside the building with Palladian windows. I abandoned the archivolt and gamboled over the embankment, falling face first in a pond.
    Lightning struck.
    The water was electric.
    My pulse coruscated.
    “Oh god.”
    I scrambled to my knees and ran down the brick path. Northgate was adjacent the chapel. I approached the guardhouse and looked inside.
    The ugly man sat on the stool.
    I knocked.
    Nothing happened.
    I rattled the bars.
    The guardhouse remained under lock and key.
    “How am I going to get out?”
    There was no way over the fence.
    “I have to find another way.”
    A three story annex with transom fanlights and mulled windows overlooked Madison Avenue. I noticed a gap between the foundation and fence permitting access to a crawlspace, the water-poked boughs of the hedge tinseled in razor wire. I cleaved the thorns, hoping to find a weakness, barbed halos like rain-glossed spider webs.
    The crawlspace opened up and I found myself able to stand. I searched for a sturdy foothold and hoisted myself up the pleaching. The branches thinned out, revealing the upper floors of the annex.
    The silhouette of a man stood in a third story window.
    It was Matthew.
    “Matthew?”
    I could not tell if he saw me.
    “Ah!” I pricked my finger. Pain shot up my arm. I stuck my finger in my mouth. My tongue constricted.
    “What the.”
    I hallucinated. The hedge was melting. Thorns barbed my knuckles and embedded in my bones. The hedge appeared to shear into the downpour and the loam. I shimmied on the V-shaped post where sleeve and ring were split, a man-sized hole just big enough through which someone could fit.
    “There is a way out!”
    I tested the footing.
    It was solid.
    I hesitated.
    “What if that which grants salvation guarantees annihilation?”
    From far away I heard a scream.
    The hole in the fence teetered in the wind.

Chapter 10
    Elysian Fields
     
    My finger discolored. A necrotic paralysis anesthetized my extremities. Viscous fluid bubbled down my chin. I touched my face.
    My eyes were bleeding.
    I poked my way back through the thorns, rubbing my shoulder in agony. The wind sheared the crawlspace. Thorns scuffed my jacket like poisoned plantains. I emerged from the hedge and climbed annex steps.
    There was a sign on the rivulet.
     
    Elysian Fields
    'lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate'
     
    I tested the entryway. It was unsecured. An enameled fresco depicted forests, castles and lakes. A knotted pile carpet reeked of ether and nitrous oxide. At the end of a hall was a stairwell, doors on both sides.
    I heard voices.
    A door opened.
    A nurse appeared.
    I pressed against the wall.
    How could I have gone unnoticed?
    Surely the nurse had seen me.
    I peeked around the corner. The nurse unlocked a utility closet, filling a bucket with water. I hastened noiselessly, the green carpet eating my footsteps.
    “…dirty as the dead…dirty as the dead…you’ll see what I